BRIDGEWATER — Opponents of the 18 Homes hillside development in the Foothill Road section of town will be heard again at Tuesday’s planning board meeting at 7 p.m. in the Municipal Courtroom, 100 Commons Way.

John Wemple left his 35-acre Bridgewater propery to 11 nieces and nephews with the intention that the land remain open space, as he made clear in his will, signed in 1997. It stated the land "shall never be developed, sub-divided or utilized for other than a one single family residential dwelling," the Somerset Messenger-Gazette reported in June.

But upon his death in 2001, the heirs fought the will and had those restrictions thrown out, and later sold the property to developer Steven Lang.

Patty Phillips of Berrywood Lane, spokeswoman for the "Stop 18 Homes" group of about 60 neighbors, told the Messenger-Gazette in June that her group wants the property to remain as open space. One of the group's concerns is that the property is is subject to heavy storm water runoff that plagues Foothill Road and downhill properties.

Lang’s engineer, James Mantz, has been unable to convince the opposition group, and some planning board members, that the improvements, including three detention basins and an enhanced storm water runoff collection system, would improve the situation, the Messenger-Gazette has also reported.

Township planner Scarlett Doyle worried that a spring on the property, thought to be the source of Cuckhold’s Brook, "(would) flow into basements or someone’s back yard," the Messenger-Gazette has reported.

Bridgewater-Raritan school board president Evan Lerner has said that the improvements Mantz proposed would make the "swamp" that often forms on the Middle School grounds worse.

Lang contends that the proposed development doesn’t present an environmental threat and has said he would comply with whatever the planning board asks of him.